Dinosaur King
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Element

Attribute relationships

Variably called Attributes or Elements in various media (Fossil Cards calling them Attribute Types, and the anime inconsistently saying "Element" and "Type" when mentioned at all). There are six main attributes and two special attributes for both Dinosaur and Move Cards in Dinosaur King, and are essentially universal throughout all media.

Mechanics[]

Though varied across the different media, Attributes work much the same. Other than Normal Moves, Move Cards can only be used by dinosaurs with the same Element. The 6 main Elements form a "ring" of advantage/disadvantage, each being strong against the one after it and weak against the one before it, but are at a neutral nonadvantage to all others, including themselves; this means that one Element of Moves is slightly stronger and another is slightly weaker against each Element of dinosaur. The precise scaling factor is unknown in the arcade game. In the DS game, bad/good match-ups result in 80% and 120% regular damage respectively, but are based directly on the attacking dinosaur's Element whether they are using a Normal or Super Move. In the anime, this order is represented by the arrangement of the Stone Tablets when placed together, though the amount of damage dealt by Moves rarely reflects the Elements involved. In the arcade and TCG, Move Cards are often ordered to be grouped by Element on their card lists, though only the TCG does this for Dinosaur Cards. The TCG also does not feature any mechanic to reflect Attribute effectiveness, simply specifying which Moves can be used by which dinosaurs.

Main Attributes[]

Attributes

The 6 Main Attributes.
Row 1: Fire, Lightning, Grass
Row 2: Water, Earth, Wind

Fire
Fire Dinosaurs are strongest against Wind Dinosaurs (Wind spreads Fire), but weakest against Water Dinosaurs (Water puts out Fire). Their Move Cards involve attacks with fire. This element focuses more on power as they have more high-powered dinosaurs, and consists of tyrannosaurids, carcharodontosaurids, and the "biggest and meanest" of most other theropod groups (abelisaurids, metriacanthosaurids, allosaurids, megalosaurids).
A website Dino Holder game featured Therizinosaurus as a Fire Dinosaur, implying that this is the original Element of Therizinosauridae (possibly because their bulky build prevents them from executing many Wind Moves convincingly). Megalosaurus was also probably originally a Fire Dinosaur due to its arcade introduction animation.
Water
Water Dinosaurs are strongest against Fire Dinosaurs (Water puts out Fire), but weakest against Lightning Dinosaurs (Water conducts electricity, like Lightning). Their Move Cards involve attacks with water. This element consists of all types of sauropods (cetiosaurids, diplodocoids, and titanosaurians) (once thought to be aquatic) and the spinosaurid theropods (scientifically proven to be partially aquatic), but two of their Moves summon ichthyosaurs and a plesiosaur (both marine reptiles).
As a sauropod, Apatosaurus was a Water Dinosaur before being turned into a Secret Dinosaur.
Lightning
Lightning Dinosaurs are strongest against Water Dinosaurs (Water conducts electricity, like Lightning), but weakest against Earth Dinosaurs (Earth blocks Lightning). Their Move Cards involve attacks with electricity. This element consists of the ceratopsians (horned dinosaurs), mostly the ceratopsids. Their electrical weapons usually resemble human tools, such as anchors and spears.
A website Dino Holder game featured Pachycephalosaurus as a Lightning Dinosaur, implying all of Marginocephalia (ceratopsians and Pachycephalosauria) have the Element.
Earth
Earth Dinosaurs are strongest against Lightning Dinosaurs (Earth blocks Lightning), but are weakest against Grass Dinosaurs (Grass grows on Earth). Their Move Cards often involve attacking with rocks or glowing purple crystals. This element consists of the thyreophorans (armored dinosaurs) like the stegosaurians and ankylosaurians (nodosaurids, polacanths, and ankylosaurids).
As a nodosaurid, the Pawpawsaurus would have been an Earth Dinosaur before being turned into a Secret Dinosaur.
Grass
Grass Dinosaurs are strongest against Earth Dinosaurs (Grass grows on Earth), but weakest against Wind Dinosaurs (Wind blows Grass off the ground). Their Move Cards involve either attacks with plant life or using other dinosaurs to boost their own power or attack for them. This element consists of hadrosaurids (duck-billed dinosaurs), earlier iguanodontids, and their other ornithopod relatives, but many of their Move Cards summon a diverse variety of dinosaurs, like giant sauropods, even including pterosaurs and a plesiosaur (which aren't dinosaurs).
Wind
Wind Dinosaurs are strongest against Grass Dinosaurs (Wind blows Grass off the ground), but weakest against Fire Dinosaurs (Wind spreads Fire). Their Move Cards involve attacks with wind and/or emphasize attacking quickly and repeatedly without letting the opponent recuperate from the previous attack before the next one hits. This element consists of small- to medium-sized theropods of almost all families, including many that also have Fire Dinosaur members (ceratosaurids, megalosaurids, coelophysoids, dilophosaurids, abelisaurids, allosaurids, metriacanthosaurids, neovenatorids, ornithomimids, troodontids, and dromaeosaurids).
Several Secret Dinosaurs were or likely were originally Wind Dinosaurs based on their size and arcade introduction animation (Deinonychus, Eoraptor, and Cryolophosaurus).

Special Attributes[]

Secret
Secret Dinosaurs are very powerful and have no elemental weaknesses. In the anime, they glow with a blinding rainbow aura and are all artificially strengthened or specially trained individuals. All Secret Dinosaurs (except Eoraptor) each have 3 of their own unique Secret Moves, and all of these attacks (except Pawpawsaurus') involve a glowing rainbow aura in some way (though not all feature in the anime). There are very few Secret Dinosaurs, and members can come from any dinosaur family, though most are theropods. Some Secret Dinosaurs wouldn't fit comfortably in any of the six main elements using their present definitions, though for others, their otherwise "native element" is more obvious.
Normal
Normal Move Cards can be used by any dinosaur, and usually feature simple physical combat or other non-elemental powers. Unlike other Attributes, Normal is in most Dinosaur King media portrayed as the lack of an Attribute rather than being a distinct type of power, the anime showing an empty Element space on the cards and the DS game listing their Attribute as "None".
There are no playable dinosaurs from this Attribute. "Normal Dinosaurs" only appear in certain Normal Move Cards and either assist your dinosaur in battle or battle for them for the turn the Move activates. They can be from any dinosaur or pterosaur family. A yellow exclamation mark on a purple square is used as their element symbol in the Kyoryu-King Museum, although the same symbol is used to identify most Normal Moves, even those that don't involve these dinosaurs. Velociraptor in the anime notably initially lacked an element, so it may have been the only known Normal Element non-Move Card Dinosaur.

Trivia[]

  • Grass is the only Attribute that is not assigned to any Secret Dinosaur as its original Attribute.
  • The Water and Secret Attributes are the only groups that (without Move Cards) take from multiple dinosaur branches without including from what’s in between: sauropods and spinosaurids for Water (and plesiosaurs in the TCG), and literally anything for Secret.
    • Grass is the most diverse with Move Cards included, featuring ornithopods with an added ankylosaur, a theropod, sauropods, pterosaurs, and even a plesiosaur.
    • Fire and Wind are the most overlapping Elements, each taking members from many of the same theropod families, but often differing by relative size or otherwise being arbitrary.
  • In the anime, the interactions between the Attributes for Moves targetting dinosaurs are usually not heeded, except for specific cases where it is pointed out.
  • No Wind Dinosaur in the anime defeated a Grass Dinosaur, but in return also no Grass Dinosaur defeated a Wind Dinosaur.
  • Uniquely among the animals featured, the native Element of the pterosaurs has never been revealed or even implied, only appearing in Normal and Grass Moves but never standalone, nor are they closely related to a specific Element's group (pterosaurs are nearly a sister group to all dinosaurs). Since they can fly, it is probably Wind, but Water would also be possible, since many members lived on the coast and ate fish.
  • Dinosaurs cards can be activated without the use of a Stone Tablet by simply touching a physical manifestation of their respective Elements: Fire Dinosaur cards activate when exposed to flame or embers, Water Dinosaur cards on contact with water, Lightning Dinosaur cards when affected by electricity, Earth Dinosaur cards on contact with dirt or rocks, Grass Dinosaur cards on contact with plants, Wind Dinosaur cards when exposed to stiffly moving air, and Secret Dinosaur cards when hit by multiple colors of light at once, usually by refraction.
    • When this happens, the dinosaur becomes a "wild dinosaur" and behaves like a normal animal, nobody being able to control it unless it befriends them and decides to obey. However, several technologies can be used to impart control or otherwise force compliance without turning wild dinosaurs into their cards first to directly manipulate.
  • Before Dr. Z created the Move Cards, the interactions between the attributes were probably rather meaningless because at that point the dinosaurs could only fight each other with physical attacks.
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